Hypoxia

Aerobic respiration is one of the major ways of extraction of energy from large macromolecules involving widespread metabolic pathways such as glycolysis or citric acid cycle, using molecular oxygen as electron acceptor. Deprivation of oxygen prevents pyruvate from being metabolised by the citric acid cycle and leads to the production of sometimes toxic compounds. Pathologies such as brain and heart ischemia-related diseases as well as cancer progression have been linked to such situation.

One of the major regulation pathways in response to changing levels of available oxygen involves the Hypoxia-Inducible Factors (HIF) family. Activation of the HIF pathway leads to modifications of the gene expression pattern to allow cells, tissues and organs to adapt to low oxygenation.